Dual Boot

I have a situation with my Dell XPS 720 running XP Pro and need advice. My system has two 500 GB hard drives. I just purchased and installed two 1 TB drives. I would like to reinstall Windows XP Pro and all my other software from the 500 GB drives on to the new 1 TB drives. Eventually, I want the new 1 TB drives to be the primary drives. This should allow me to purge all the data and software from the original 500 GB drives. Do I have to create a dual boot system and will the XP Pro work on both drives? How do I create a dual boot system? Will the drives be recognized by both OS?

You do not need to reinstall the op sys or programs. There are many products
that wiill allow you to back up the drive with the op sys and your data
files. The product I recommend in Acronis. I have used this product for
approx 2.5 yrs without failure

I'd have to agree with Mikey. Acronis is wonderful. In fact, you quite
possibly got a copy with your 1TB drive..
I'm making an assumption there, but mine came with several nifty utilities -
including Acronis' imaging software.
Check on that before purchasing something that would then be redundant.
You should be able to simply image the current OS Drive onto the new 1TB,
and make it active.
From there, at worst you'll need to rearrange the boot order for your hard
drives in BIOS.

You did not mention the mfr of your drives.
Seagate has a FREE program called Seagate DiscWizard.
It is based on Acronis, but is less featured and more 'idiot proof'
This idiot uses it all the time.
Purchase an external Dock.
Lee and I have been pushing people to purchase those.
I believe they are one of the greatest inventions in the last decade.
(I have three)
They cost about $25
They connect to your PC, via USB or eSATA cable.
You buy an internal 3.5" internal drive, and shove it vertically into a
slot.
All of the above is the same as buying an external drive, but I would
never buy an external drive again.
If you Google for usb external dock 3.5 2.5 you should get some hits.

I believe WD has a similar free pgm (as the DiscWizard).
The Seagate pgm will run happily, as long as it can see a Seagate drive,
hanging off the PC, or in the PC.
Also there is a Tech Override, described by a Seagate Tech Support
person (on their own forum), that I can point you to, in the event that
your only Seagate drive died (aka none visible to the pgm).

I would buy two of the Docks.
Make a bootable CD for the DiscWizard, and only use the CD for imaging
tasks.
Some may be tempted to install the pgm, and run it from within Windows.
Do not let yourself be tempted.

The first thing I would do, is make an image onto your external dock.
I would remove your 500GB drive and place it in the wife's underwear
drawer, or somewhere equally safe.
Now restore the image to one of your new 1TB drives.
Boot into that and ensure it works.
Now some people may be content to carry on with exactly what they had
before, but in a bigger newer drive.
It is not entirely clear to me, from your OP, if you had completely
ruled out that option?

If you are wishing to do a clean install, and re-install all your
programs, and still have access to your previous OS for a while. And be
able to browse and copy data from the old one, then here is what I would
do -

This assume that you have done the Image, and the Restore to your 1TB drive.
I would disconnect the internal cables from that 1TB drive.
(I only disconnect the power cable, but I have never used SATA drives
inside my PCs)
I would install Windows into your other 1TB drive.
I would take the 500GB out of that drawer, and shove it into one of your
external Docks.
Make sure that your Bios is set to NOT boot from USB devices.

Now you can run your fresh Installed OS.
You can turn on the external dock to browse the old OS, and get files.
If you ever have want to run the old OS, turn off the PC, and remove the
power cable from the new OS 1TB drive.
Connect the power cable to the old OS 1TB drive, and turn on your PC.

I agree with Michael and Corey, invest in Acronis and you can create an exact image of XP on your 500GB drive and copy it to the new 1TB drive.
The other 1TB drive will for storage.
Unless the drives are in RAID.

You don't need a dual boot system unless you are installing another operating system such as windows 7 on the other 1TB drive.

Install the new drive on the machine and install the windows on it and then
set the old drive as a slave.
here you can copy all your files unto the new drive and then re-install all
applications software
from CDs or any other storage media.

1. Disconnected the two 500 GB hard drives.
2. Connected the two 1 TB hard drives.
3. Rebooted the system with the windows XP installation disc in the CD drive.
4. System would not reboot because I get the error "RCPCORE.msi.NTLDR" is missing.

Do you know how I can correct this problem? I would greatly appreciate your assistance.

are you receiving any message relating to press any key to install from cd, if not check to ensure that your cd or dvd is hooked up, if it is hooked up try to install another dvd or cd whatever drive you are using to load the os on. check bios sequence it could be possible the cd or dvd is not being recognized in the bios. just a couple of things to check, let me know if any of these were of any help. sometimes it is the simplist of things that we overlook.
?
good luck
?
Kevin

rcpcore.msi appears to be associated with Roxio Esy Media Creator but errors in writing to a HDD can indicate errors on the HDD, in which case I'd boot to the recovery console and run a chkdsk first, then check or swap the cables, check your cd media and also check the cd drive, swapping both if necessary.

Check in the bios if both hard drives and CD drives are there, also
check if it is set to boot on the CD drive first under boot order.
If all is correct it may that you need a special driver for the two TB
hard drives, consult the manufacturer.

My good friend this error mostly indicate that there is no os on the drive
so check the Cmos setup and set the boot sequence to the CD/dvd boot 1st
after that save the changes you have made and restart the machine.
Or sometimes some of the machine will display when starting up press f1 or
f9
and so on to to( boot menu). press the key indicated and select CD/DVD
boot.

Thank you so much for your help. When I'm next at home I will try your
suggestions. I have two towers and one tells me errror loading os and the
other tells me there are no hard drives when I try to install windows xp.

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